There are a number of factors that could have contributed to this sudden jump. Bitcoin, and cryptocurrencies more generally, have seen a plethora of positive news this week.

For instance, South Korea – a major crypto trading market – announced that they were loosening restrictions on all manners of cryptocurrency trading across the board, including examining allowing domestic initial coin offerings (ICOs).

This is according to the KoreaTimes, who stated, “Financial regulators plan to ease rules on crypto-based assets in line with policies initiated by G20 nations to establish unified regulations.” As reported by CCN this, South Korean authorities are also looking at classifying cryptocurrency exchanges as regulated financial institutions.

Another major occurrence is the increasingly successful lightning network. Some reports making the rounds online have even stated that the lightning network capacity is increasing 50% every week. Additionally, 20 new stores per day are accepting Lightning payments.

Other potential factors that may have impacted the price spike include so-called crypto “whales” choosing this moment to place large buy orders For Bitcoin. Since the supply of Bitcoin is finite (21,000,000 total theoretical supply of Bitcoin, with only 17,137,187 currently circulating), it stands to reason that large buy or share orders can impact the price significantly.

Since the overall cryptocurrency market prices tend to mirror Bitcoin in terms, these large buy orders could have theoretically resulted in a temporary feedback loop, where altcoin prices rose due to the Bitcoin price spike, which in turn led to the Bitcoin price spiking even more because of the potential for a “bull run.”